


Ouroboros

by nava



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cultural Differences, F/M, Lyrium Addiction, Rogue Trevelyan - Freeform, Romance, Substance Abuse, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 03:32:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7297771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nava/pseuds/nava
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Evelyn and Solas circle one another during the time of the Inquisition. It leads everywhere and nowhere, again and again.</p><p>Or, the slow inevitability of a relationship that cannot possibly go anywhere and the people doomed to try anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ouroboros

**Author's Note:**

> One of the tags mentions substance abuse. DA features it a little bit in every game and we saw more of it with Cullen. Just a warning - detox and handling addiction (from the person dealing with it to the people supporting it) is ugly and I'll be touching on that in this fic, like a lot. 
> 
>  
> 
> Another note - my Trevelyan isn’t a mage and I notice that’s super popular in DA:I in general with FemQuisitors (esp in a Solas relationship) - but rogue has always been my favorite class (although this one isn't a Templar), so I stuck with my favorite for this story. 
> 
> And ahead of time, I apologize for the action scenes - I’m not very good at them.

Solas  **i.**

 

Solas judged her when he first met her. Mortal. Human. The anchor sunk deep into her flesh and started taking root in her spirit. He’d been too weak to transfer it when he first met her. And he had been sorry that she would die due to his mistake in entrusting that twisted creature with the orb. 

 

Then she lived, used the anchor to close the rifts. She fought to control what she would never be able to actually control. But she fought for it nonetheless. 

 

She was from a noble house, and he expected her to expect respect simply for her name, demand obedience when they called her the herald of Andraste. She hadn’t - and for that reason alone, seemingly different from all that he expected of her kind, made him curious. 

 

She had been uncomfortable with the implication of the Maker inserting Himself in her life, at the thought of being the mouthpiece for the Maker’s Bride. 

 

He had thought it was due to her own observation of religion. Perhaps she felt unworthy, or that she thought this was some holy trial she was to overcome and triumph in. 

 

Worthiness to hold the mark never seemed to cross her mind. She had pride enough, a grinning sort of pride that outshined the faint cast of nobility she bore. She knew her worth. She extended it in a personal manner, she was herself, and she was of herself and never seemed to want to be more -  a selfish sort of pride that wasn't entirely selfish.  

 

Her discomfort was borne of holding something no one understood, of being placed in the spotlight of blame and savior at once, and responsibility she was reluctant to hold. She was flightier than he liked, than Cassandra liked - the Seeker had kept a close eye on the Herald for the first few weeks of their introduction - but Varric had been the one who spoke in a calm, sure manner. “She’ll come around, Seeker. She’s just a little skittish. She won’t abandon the Inquisition.” 

 

He had been right. Something had settled in her, perhaps resignation over her fate, or the plight of the people around her - or even wishing justice for the mysterious being who had killed so many innocent lives and ended any hope of a peaceful resolution to the mage-templar war. Whatever it had been, her hesitant and mocking nature had changed to a kind of gallows humor and some sort of infinite patience for all the things the Inquisition demanded of her. Would that he had that grim patience in his youth. 

 

It had surprised him little to learn of her origins although her career background was protected rather suspiciously by Sister Leliana. Trevelyan. A noble house deeply entrenched in the Chantry, devoted and loyal and devout, they were a political powerhouse with roots across Thedas - and many of the spares were committed to the Order of Templars or the Chantry. 

 

It came as a shock when he found that she didn't seem to care for idea of the Maker or His Bride at all. 

 

“If I don't believe in them, will they smite me? Spit on me? Step on me? Imagine: a giant boot coming out of the sky to step on a speck that means less than nothing - how ridiculous to think that something that unimaginably impossible and otherworldly would give a rat’s ass about what a speck thinks of it?” She hadn't even been in her cups yet at that point, although she'd been running her tongue over her teeth the entire time. She’d had a great dose of lyrium before, a potion with the dust not even completely settled on the bottom of the small vial. She would’ve been better without it, but it had not been his place to show concern at the time. Not in these things. 

 

“ You do not believe that an ant cannot feel slighted against being stepped on?” he'd asked. 

 

“I think an ant has plenty to feel and say about it. Doesn't mean shit to the foot though. I'd wager that the foot has no idea the ant is even there. And if it does, it probably doesn't care. It's just an ant.” She'd responded, tongue slicking her teeth, tips of her fingers showing white-blue dust. 

 

Solas had nearly laughed - the Evanuris would not have allowed her to live, even if she did consider herself a speck. Such thoughts, rebellious and singular and independent, weren't just inconvenient to them; they were worse than a challenge. Even an ant, he had wanted to reply but managed to keep his peace, has potential to become a swarm. 

 

 

 

 

Evelyn laughed up ahead, slapping the Iron Bull on his back. He didn’t seem to feel it but he returned the favor and the rogue nearly stumbled into the bushes. “Solas! Bull found a dragon!” she turned, eyes bright and nearly glazed - she had used too much for today and he found his lips thinning but he refrained from speaking out against it in front of everyone, she deserved discretion - “I’ve never fought a dragon before.” She looked at him expectantly. 

 

Solas sighed and felt weary just from hearing that. “It is no easy task.” And then the roar and gurgle of fire sounded from across the clearing, beyond the small vale. “But, I suppose we must see to her considering how close it is to the farmlands.” He continued reluctantly. 

 

The Iron Bull crowed in victory and Evelyn grinned crookedly, hands dropping to her coat to rearrange the series of flasks she kept in her hidden pockets. Dorian made an exaggerated noise of dismay beside him. “While you two rush off into danger, Solas and I will have to keep both of you alive and kill the dragon for you. Hardly an adventure for us.” 

 

Solas tipped his head slightly. “It sounds rather ordinary to me.” 

 

Dorian barked out a laugh. “Indeed, a daily thing for us mages to endure. The follies of rogues and warriors.” 

 

Solas let a small smile slip. 

 

Evelyn rocked on her heels - buzzing with energy and anxiety. “Should we call for backup?” 

 

The Iron Bull scratched his stomach. “The Seeker will be steamed if she misses this.” The grin on his face said that he rather enjoyed the thought. 

 

Evelyn cocked her head and unsheathed a dagger; curved and wicked and barbed, and began running an oil cloth over it quickly. “I don’t think Cassandra likes dragons much, Bull.” 

 

The qunari snorted. “Impossible.” 

 

The dragon roared again, closer and a shadow blotted out the sun. “Above us!” Evelyn yelled unnecessarily, still oiling her dagger even as she dove for cover under a rock ledge. Solas cast a barrier around himself and Dorian, the ones furthest from any form of protection but the great beast circled, calling out again. 

 

The Iron Bull peeled slightly away from the ledge to squint up at it. “She’s guarding a nest. There’s  _ dragonlings _ here!” The excitement in his voice was only surpassed by the ridiculous amount of adoration in his face. 

 

“Well now I feel like a swine.” Dorian grumbled. Solas shifted beside him in their tiny shared space, a crooked overhang off to the side of the ledge the Iron Bull and Evelyn had plastered themselves under. 

 

“If it helps, I once saw a little pack of dragonlings tear a company of mercenaries apart and fight over the bones.” Iron Bull pointed out. 

 

The Tevinter mage frowned and rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t help, no.” 

 

“Aw, you Vints. So delicate about everything.” 

 

The dragon belched hellfire down below, scorching a small line of trees and blackening the rocks the group had been standing on just a minute before. 

 

“Except blood magic.” Evelyn pointed out. “No delicate sensibilities for that.” 

 

Iron Bull snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “This one gets it.” 

 

Dorian grumbled. “Bloody Southerners. Not every Tevinter mage practices blood magic.” 

 

“I thought all magisters practiced?” Evelyn sounded sincerely curious. She stuck her head out momentarily to check the sky since a shadow hadn’t passed since the warning of fire from above. Solas felt his chest tighten when she barely ducked away from another, smaller and more well aimed, fireball. 

 

“All magisters practice to get a leg up on the competition because  _ all the other magisters practice _ . I am not, however, a magister. I am an  _ altus _ .” The disgust in his voice was evident. 

 

“Do other altuses practice to get a leg up on competition?” Her line of questioning continued. The Iron Bull began to laugh loudly. Solas snorted out an abrupt chuckle. 

 

“ _ Al-altuses _ ?!” Dorian covered his eyes with a hand dramatically. “Who taught you how to speak, that is not plural for an altus -  _ Maker _ .” 

 

The Iron Bull continued cackling. “Keep going boss, this is gold.” 

 

The conversation couldn’t continue immediately, because the dragon had grown tired of their hiding and perched herself atop the ledge they hid under and roared. Dragonlings appeared from the cracks of the rocks around them and Evelyn broke a smoke flask at Dorian’s feet to hide the mages from the pack. Bull shouted a challenge. 

 

Solas summoned killing magic, efficient and deadly, freezing and shattering the little ones with something like regret. They had answered the call of their mother and were protecting the unhatched eggs that lay below them in a cavern somewhere. The dragon screeched when an entire line of her children shattered in the ice, the Iron Bull swinging scavenged his war hammer. Solas tried to put the sound of anguish from his mind. Not so mindless, or incapable of intelligence and empathy - she understood and anguished. Dragons were simply forces of nature, magic made untamable and in a form of its own. 

 

Not always the villain. 

 

This one was only a mother who had children to feed. And they were dying all around her.

 

Dorian called upon a nightmare and the dragonlings quailed from the mages, instead focusing on the qunari and attempting to catch the rogue. Evelyn flitted out of range, just barely, taunting them and the dragon to keep them from being aware of all the elements of the battlefield. 

 

“Incoming!” Bull bellowed. 

 

The dragon took flight and landed on the ground, rearing with her heavy spiked tail lashing in the air. She screamed and the dragonlings retreated, some waiting for an opportune moment to strike at the group. She snarled and turned on the group, snapping her jaws and stalking towards Bull. 

 

He met her challenge and kept her focus on him. The Inquisitor darted to her blind spot, dodging a hind leg and a foreclaw aimed to disembowel. Her attention  seemed consumed by a singular spot on the dragon’s neck near her left foreleg. She vanished from sight again. 

 

Evelyn appeared beside Solas, sweaty and focused. She reached into the leather satchel she kept at her hip at all times and broke the seal of the flask. The scent of poison registered; thick and cloying and sweet. “I’ve no idea if this even works on a dragon.” She craned her arm back and waited, palming the poison. Solas cast a barrier around them, keeping his eye on the rogue while Dorian watched the Iron Bull carefully. 

 

The dragon exposed her throat, gurgling and ready to spit fire. Evelyn flung the flask at the open wound she had chiseled in her scales. The flask struck, broke and the dragon cried out in surprise. Purple smoke curled from the open wound and the fresh blood that flowed from it began to turn black. 

 

“Probably won’t do much though, will it, with her size?” She breathed. 

 

Solas shook his head. “It is near enough to her heart. The idea is sound. We will see if it will bear fruit.” 

 

Solas could tell it already was. The dragon was in great pain, and the blood from her wounds around her throat and forelegs fell more freely. 

 

The Iron Bull had seen the mark, an enormous black splotch on the dragon’s neck and began attacking it ferociously. The scaled armor of her flesh gave way beneath the brutal strokes of the war hammer. Dorian and Solas focused their attacks between the Iron Bull’s swings, working out a precise rhythm. 

 

Evelyn took a breath and broke a flask of lightning on her to leap back into the fray. 

 

It was over quickly - the Iron Bull had demolished both of her front legs and a wing was torn down the middle, the Inquisitor had dragged her poisoned blades through the softer ligaments and thin skin. Solas summoned ice and lightning to attack the poisoned wound close to her heart. Evelyn kept the dragon from focusing and confused while Dorian lay down glyphs all around them and kept the now frenzied dragonlings at bay. 

 

The dragon died with a low groan, her limbs failed and folded beneath her and her heavy body shook the ground with a tremor when she expired. What dragonlings remained were finished off quickly or driven away. 

 

The Iron Bull looked incredibly pleased with himself afterwards and yanked at a sword that had remained stuck in her scales near the joint of her wing. Dorian was complaining about the edges of his robes having caught flame. 

 

Evelyn poked and prodded at the dragon, lifting a lip to inspect a tooth, knocking a dagger hilt against it. Solas leaned on his staff and waited for the others to regroup. He’d drawn on too much of his mana - and he could see the same bone-weariness in Dorian. But they were alive and not so tired that they couldn’t make the journey back to camp. 

 

Evelyn straightened. “I thought it would be more exciting than this.” She admitted. 

 

Solas raised his brows. “A battle with a dragon is not exciting?” 

 

“Er - no not like that. Thought I'd feel more like...a conquering hero? I don't.” She paused when she stepped in dragonling blood. “I didn't think dragons mourned.” She admitted. 

 

Solas followed her gaze, a trail of blood and saw what she saw. The dragon had died in front of a dark mouth of a cave, higher up on a small plateau. There was a pale, opalescent glimmer from the eggs within. “She was a living, thinking thing. Of course she mourned.”

 

Evelyn’s lips tightened and she shifted her weight. Solas softened. “I do not mean it as a reprimand. Only a fact. And she had to be removed. She would have killed many people and her children would need too much livestock to live.” 

 

“Feels wrong to smash the eggs.” She absently began cleaning a dagger with the underside of her coat. “We could leave them and if they live, they live right? Like what the naturalist researchers do? Don't a lot of dragonlings end up dying anyway?” 

 

She wandered away and was touching the smooth dome of one egg. 

 

Solas cocked his head. She was gentler than he expected. A testament to her remarkability and uniqueness of self to catch one as old as him off guard. “True. We need not disrupt the course of nature more than we need to.” 

 

Evelyn nodded. She seemed satisfied by that and slipped a pouch out from a pocket, opened it and, with an ungloved hand, dipped her fingers in and brought them to her mouth. The sun shone down on the glitter that coated her fingers. It sparkled like fools’ gold. 

 

**Solas turned away. **


End file.
